change column heading

[jhoyt]

When I select the format editor, I only see "totals" under General and "Color" and "Trans" under Background...there are no other options.  How do I change a column header?

[grechine]

I think this workaround works which is to create a "Measure" that just references the columns under a new name. This is redundant but might be useful if absolutely necessary to have a different column name.

[Anonymous]

changing a coulmn name in BI is easy, but when I change the input Excel column heading to match I get an error on the data refresh. Somewhere in BI is holds on to the old name. Not a good design.

[gaj995]

I am aware that the name of a column cannot be changed, but what if you want to remove "Count of" from the name? Is this a posibility? or do you have to create a new column with the results that you need? 

Thank you for any help. 

[Anonymous]

Agree with this... in Power BI Service, the addition of "Count of" in front of the column name in a table view is bloody annoying and no obvious way to remove it. I have had to resort to a different visualisation, e.g. a bar chart with labels, or single text boxes... Its a workaround, but the table view would definitely be better. 

Would be great if we the PBIS team could remove the "count of" from the column header. 

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

I assume you are speaking about the Table visualization in the report section.. You can't change the name of a column within a visual.

You need to change the name of the field you are using in the data set. You can't have column1 be customized for every visualization, it's column 1 in everything...

You can do this in various places.

Report View - Right click the field in the field list, Rename

right click the column 

Data View - Right click in the field list like above, or right click the column name on the table.

[CahabaData]

In Power BI Service - with the report in Edit Mode - right clicking on the column/field name does not offer a Rename option.

So far in PBIS I am unable to find any method to rename a column.  Sorry to be clueless on this.  What am I missing?

I have no problem in PBIDesktop.....

[Andrew_OCP]

Hi

I am using a Tabular data source with Power BI, but cannot locate where to change the field name, i.e. alias it.

I assume you can do this in the browser as well as dekstop version .

However I must be missing something obvious.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Andrew

[greggyb]

@Andrew_OCP, are you using a live connection to Tabular with the Enterprise Gateway, or are you using an imported data model?

If you are using a live connection, Power BI only offers the functionality of Power View, the reporting and visualization layer. All metadata is stored in SSAS, and column name changes would have to be initiated in the SSAS model.

If you are using an imported data model, you can change your field names in the Power Query section of Power BI (Edit Queries ribbon menu item).

Regardless of the dataset type, none of these changes can be made in Power BI Service. Data model manipulation is only available in Power BI Desktop. Power BI Service is a consumption and lightweight report authoring environment.

SSAS modifications would be made through SSDT.

[grechine]

In response to your comment, "If you are using a live connection, Power BI only offers the functionality of Power View, the reporting and visualization layer. All metadata is stored in SSAS, and column name changes would have to be initiated in the SSAS model."

Is there a way to change the name in the SSAS model and have that change carry through into the reporting and visualization layer? I have multiple people with ready made dashboards and when I attempt to change a column header, the old header already in their report does not automatically update to the new column header name. Therefore, it is doesn't seem feasible to change headers in the SSAS because I would create errors in all of their reports and they would have to replace each old header the the new one.

[dmgdotnet]

Do you think there will be support in updating field names on a per-use basis like is currently possible in Excel connected to a live SSAS tabular model?